


Heroic

by drakonlily



Category: chopin
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-19
Updated: 2010-02-19
Packaged: 2017-10-07 09:10:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/63611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drakonlily/pseuds/drakonlily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fredric Chopin and George Sand, they never completely got along, but they understood each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heroic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crankyoldman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crankyoldman/gifts).



_Are you sure that's a woman?_ By all accounts it wasn't the first time such a statement had been made in regards to the less than demure George Sand. Aurore Dupin was the female name she left behind to get into the male dominated role of writer. Her romance novels had taken Paris by something of a storm being turbulent and passionate and very much something to not be discussed in mixed company. She had a square jaw and brash personality down to her pants and harsh cigars.

_Is he sure he's a man?_ It was a contrast, to be in the presence of Fredric Chopin. He had gentle features, and a feminine grace. Even his touch on the piano was lilting, the movement of his hands seemed to coax a sound from the keys more than they created it. He was charming but delicate by comparison.

"You don't seem one for company." She ashed into an empty whiskey glass. The piano loomed before her and the room itself was dark, a few lit candles reflected white strands in the young composer's hair. "Hey, I'm talking to you."

His eyes were dark and a little distant. He smiled softly and then his hands started to stroke at the piano. Eyes drifted closed and his shoulders swayed. The notes were varied, but all of them had his lightness, a touch, something that was much more telling than pages on an autobiography. He paused and opened his eyes. When he spoke, he sounded breathy, as though it were an effort. "I don't speak well" he breathed deeply "I suppose."

"I think I understand you fine, my friend." She didn't realize that she had taken to leaning over the piano. Instead she extended her hand. "George."

"Sand." Again he paused. "I've read." He closed the top of the piano reverently like a parent putting their child under covers. "Fredric-"

"Chopin." She smiled. "I've heard."

-+-

"Fredric, you need a coat." She sighed in exasperation. "It's damp and you've been-"

"I've been dying half my life, George." His exasperation matched hers in vigor, but he didn't have the strength to keep up her tone.

"Don't joke like that."

"I… apologies."

"Take the damn coat, sometimes I swear, you're like a child and I've raised two already."

"Are they what gave you your abounding patience?"

"Fredric, when you get better, I'm going to kick your skinny little ass. You remember that." The thunder cracked and she frowned. "Are you certain you want to have lessons today?"

He glared at her, dark and distant from behind graying hair.

"Have it your way."

-+-

Thin fingers gripped the blanket, bunching it along the side of the bed. The arm was tense and locked, vibrating with tension. The other hand was likewise affixed to his shirt, just at his ribcage. The breaths were sporadic, hitch hitch, wheeze, hitch, a long and almost desperate pause before an explosion that was riddled with pops. The hacking that followed was productive, but painful to listen to.

He pulled a cloth from his mouth and made an attempt to swallow. Blood had soaked through the item and was clinging between his fingers, mixed up in phlegm. Chopin took labored breaths before he threw the item to a waste bin in disgust. His maids had long since quit and no amount of money could persuade them to return.

Instead he forced himself to stand and carried the item down the halls. The fire that crackled from the sitting room sounded like the rattle in his chest. Putting the bin on the floor, he crossed into the room. "You-" words, why wouldn't they come out more easily? "-should rest."

When she looked up he couldn't tell if she was pitying him or herself. "Listen to yourself, what the hell, Fredric? Come on, go to bed."

"I've been in bed-" breathe "-for weeks. I can't."

"And I told you I'd empty the trash." She stood. "You need to sleep. You're never going to get well if you don't."

"George, everyone is dying. You know that, right?"

"But you're not."

He left the basket and sat at the piano. The funeral march that he was working on was more powerful than some of his works. He looked up at her when he was done and coughed again, one hand gripping the side of the grand piano and the other cupped over his mouth.

When George spoke it was lightly. "I understand. But the maids are still ridiculous and superstitious."

"People are afraid to die, George."

"People are idiots, Fredric."

"And thus what are we?"

"Idiots." She agreed.

-+-

"Spain?" The summer sun in Paris was extraordinary. It had a magical ability to light every corner and shine off of the people, drowning the world with a white surgical clean. Chopin's skin was pale, but he seemed to breathe easier when the gardens were in bloom.

"Of course." Sand replied. "Fredric, it's magnificent. We can be right on the sea; all those new studies say that the salt air helps with weak constitutions.

His smile was still weak and his voice airy. "This wouldn't, by any chance, be a way to avoid your daughter's new husband?"

She turned her nose up in the air and made quite a show of insult.

"So mostly?"

"About forty-five percent, I'll give you."

-+-

The sun, the sand and the fresh fruits were medicine unlike money could buy in Paris. Summer was spent at a French piano and pages flew from both sets of pens. Hours into the night were marketed by music and notated by words. It was a peaceful understanding without the comments of childlike behavior or the threats of Chopin's death lurking under every note.

When his eyes closed and his shoulders danced was when Chopin was the clearest. It was then the difficulties in his speech moved away, the words that caught in the fluids of his chest didn't matter when he played. It was a brash honesty and everything he had. There was power behind it, strength and despite the best efforts of the period and style, hope.

"What is that?"

"Heroic." He responded, color in his cheeks and a breathless flush that made even Chopin look alive.

"So who is it about, you or me?"

"I will leave that up to you, George." He didn't laugh often anymore, but Spain was the best that money could buy.

-+-

Neither of them were expecting it to turn as cold as it did. The rainy season was one monsoon followed by the next with brief and all too damp periods between. Chopin's seemingly good health declined swiftly and they began canceling social ventures and lessons alike.

Islands are smaller than the mainland, and people soon began to talk. Word spread as fast as a squall that the composer was dying again.

"I'm afraid I will have to ask you both to leave, Ma'am." The landlord worried his hat with both hands. It was no small undertaking to ask very wealthy tenants to leave on no notice. Particularly a pair of celebrities, one of whom was too sick to be near and the other of whom was violent with deadly aim.

"And go where, exactly?" Sand hissed, she was attempting to keep her voice down, but it wasn't working.

Chopin descended into a coughing fit from where he was standing next to her. He staggered, reaching for but missing the chair.

When Sand turned, his hands fisted into her shirt and he coughed hard enough to shake them both. Her mannish hands pet at his silvering hair when he pushed his forehead against her shoulder. He sucked in gasps of air for a full minute before Sand was able to turn.

With Chopin still resting against her shoulder and her back half to the landlord Sand spoke. "I can't take him anywhere in this weather, he'll die."

"Ma'am…I may have to gut this entire building as it is, I-"

Sand whirled and held up a bloody hand. "Oh, is it this that scares you so much?" She thrust the hand forward and snarled when the landlord tripped over himself to back away. "Scared of someone who can't hurt you because he's dying? Well if it's goddamn catching what's the deal with me? Huh?" She flicked the hand down, casting blood and ick across the expensive floor. "Start burning there, and I'll be damned if you see anymore of my money."

-+-

Chopin would never recover from that illness. Gradually it would even drive George, who had understood him so fully from his life. The two would never reconcile and she was not to see him off from his death bed. In honesty, while she could understand it and him as fully as he understood her, she could not accept that he was dying. Well and truly dying.

From someone so strong, it felt like he'd given up.

One thing that remained in Spain was the old French piano. George spent a great deal of her own money to insure that it was not burned with the majority of Chopin's belongings.

-+-

Years dulled that hate of death. Something softened even the brash cigar smoking George Sand. Death was waiting then for her, and with it was her understanding. Her voice had lost a lot of its power over the harsh winter. Sand knew that she had seen her last spring.

She did not think to miss it as she lay dying.

Music filled her ears. The calm power of the funeral march was what Sand had expected. Instead, Heroic played. Though she sat up, she left the world and an old body behind.

"I can't say you've recaptured the vigor of youth."

She laughed, boisterous and deep. The old French piano finally sang; coaxed by fingers that didn't need to force the note. "And even in death, you play your song." She commented.

"No, I play Heroic, George. This night I play for you."


End file.
